Basu: To Woody Allen fans, daughter's letter is wake-up call

Feb. 6, 2014

This June 20, 2012 file photo released by Starpix shows director Woody Allen and his wife, Soon-Yi Previn, attending the premiere after party for his film 'To Rome with Love' in New York. Dylan Farrow, the adopted daughter of Allen and Mia Farrow, penned an emotional open letter, accusing Hollywood of callously lionizing Allen, who she claims abused her. The letter revived in stunning detail an allegation more than two decades old. / starpix/associated press file photo

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There is a disconnect between the reverence some of us feel for certain icons and the disgust we ought to feel about things they have done away from work. We manage that paradox by separating public from private, as if we should be concerned only with the actions that affect us; the rest is for someone else to worry about.

In no case has that choice to keep worshipping a star despite his appalling behavior been more marked, or more disturbing, than that of Woody Allen.

Last weekend, his daughter, Dylan Farrow, made a powerful argument for how, with such blind allegiance, society fails survivors of sexual assault. In a public letter to her father via a New York Times blog, Dylan, now 28, detailed her accounts of sexual assault by him when she was 7. “My mother declined to pursue criminal charges, despite findings of probable cause by the State of Connecticut,” she wrote, “due to, in the words of the prosecutor, the fragility of the ‘child victim.’ ” Without Dylan’s testimony, there was insufficient evidence.

Saying her growing-up years were haunted by the fact that Allen got away with it, Dylan wrote of her depression, eating disorder, self-mutilation and terror of being touched by a man. “That torment was made worse by Hollywood. All but a precious few (my heroes) turned a blind eye.”

What prompted her to write the piece was a Golden Globe lifetime achievement award bestowed on Allen last month and the stars who honored him even after her allegations were chronicled in a Vanity Fair article in November. To actress Diane Keaton, who accepted the award on Allen’s behalf and sang about her everlasting love for him, Dylan wrote, “You knew me when I was a little girl, Diane Keaton. Have you forgotten me?”

Allen’s attorneys have accused Mia Farrow of planting ideas in Dylan’s head out of revenge for Allen’s relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, Farrow’s daughter. Dylan completely discredits that. Dylan Farrow reportedly didn’t choose to go public with the accusations; a psychiatrist who heard Dylan’s account said he was obligated to alert state police, who began an investigation. Authorities believed enough to deny Allen custody or visitation with Dylan. He was also in therapy for what she called his inappropriate behavior toward her.

Maybe Dylan asks a lot in wanting universal condemnation of Allen for what she says he did to her. But how can we not if we believe her?

For a long time after Allen, at 54, was revealed to have secretly been having an affair with and taking nude, sexually explicit photos of 19-year-old Soon-Yi, I couldn’t see his films. Each plot I heard about involving an aging male protagonist romancing a woman half his age creeped me out. Though Soon-Yi was legally old enough to consent — and later married Allen — some sexual assault experts like Beth Barnhill still consider it sexual abuse.

I eventually began to disconnect my feelings about Allen’s public and private personas enough to see his movies. Dylan’s letter is a wake-up call. It takes courage for sexual assault and incest survivors to come forward, especially when the accused is such an icon. They’re disbelieved, stigmatized and even vilified for maligning reputations.

No, Allen wasn’t tried and can’t be charged now since the statute of limitations expired. But the public isn’t being asked to convict him — rather, to give his daughter some of the support and consideration we’ve continued to shower on him.

As consumers, some of us try not to buy clothing brands that exploit child labor or eat meat produced under inhumane conditions. It’s about living within our values. Why would we forgive behavior by entertainers that we wouldn’t by politicians — or the guy across the street? We may say there’s no proof or attribute the behavior to the quirky, Bohemian lifestyles of artists and creative geniuses.

But what are we really telling the child who has told us her father’s unconscionable acts destroyed her childhood? That frankly, we don’t give a damn.

Now Allen is in line for an Oscar for best screenplay. A spokesman for the academy was quoted saying, in an email to a Times reporter, “The Academy honors achievement in film, not the personal lives of filmmakers and artists.” That’s sort of like saying of the anti-apartheid movement’s boycott against South Africa, our investments there were about money, not human rights.